


A Ghost from the Past

by Taikanaakka



Series: The Past and the Present [2]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls Online
Genre: Daggerfall, Daggerfall City, F/M, Gen, Guards, High Rock, Past, Past Lives, Rain, Strangers, Summer, planemeld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 23:19:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17907605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taikanaakka/pseuds/Taikanaakka
Summary: William is displeased that he is having a night shift in the pouring rain again but soon he gets something else to think of than the weather. This is the sequel for my Elder Scrolls fan fiction short story The Skull and the Heart.





	A Ghost from the Past

William looked up to the skies and cursed the rain that had started again just a few moments before his shift had begun late in the evening. It had been raining almost constantly during the past weeks; the summer had been unusually wet in Daggerfall.

 

He would have preferred to stay under the shelter where he stood but he would have to do the round around the region of the city he was patrolling in that day. _"Better do it now than later, when the rain might become pouring anyways...at least it's still summer, so the rain isn't cold yet,"_ he thought as he stepped out into the rain.

 

He did not even remember the last time when he had been assigned an indoor shift during this rainy period, and he knew that his friends shared the same problem. Aleksei, their friend who had recently become an officer and was now their boss, obviously wanted to make it clear to everyone that he was not favouring his friends. In William's opinion he was clearly overcompensating but he had not said anything about it - he loved his friend more than he hated the current weather and he knew that his friend had more than enough problems to deal with. Still, he cursed out loud as he accidentally stepped into a puddle and his boot got completely wet.

 

_"Everyone in their right mind that is lucky enough must be indoors, comfortably sleeping in their beds right now,"_ he thought himself; he and his comrades were probably the only people walking in the streets of Daggerfall at the moment. He doubted that any criminal would even consider doing a heist in this kind of weather and felt doing the round around his region being totally useless and stupid. Then he thought about the matter again and remembered that back then, when he was still a thief himself, the rain would not have stopped him from doing a profitable heist - the weather would most likely have been the least of his problems when he had still lived in the Outlaws Refuge of Evermore.

 

He let his thoughts wander into the past. Beginning a new life as a city guard had felt strange in many ways at first. Stepping into the light from the darkness - literally - had been difficult for him; he had been so used to hiding in the shadows, trying by all means to avoid being seen, that making his presence felt in the city streets in his duty had felt extremely awkward for him. Soon however, he had noticed how it made decent people feel safe and how it appeared to calm down even the most heated arguments that had just been about to turn into actual brawls. He had gained confidence from the respect that people showed to him and he had gotten used to his new role eventually, even if it had felt so weird in the beginning – and also rather scary, in fact - how sincerely people seemed to trust him when he was on duty.

 

He had indeed learnt how important only being seen could be in his job - but still, when he really wanted to catch a criminal he used his hiding skills, disappearing into the shadows, then catching them by surprise. They never expected that someone in the city guard could be so good at sneaking and would be able ambush them. The lowlife of Daggerfall most likely had no idea about his past life.

 

A flash of light brought him back to presence. _"Damn it! Thunder!"_ startled he became vigilant; a thunderstorm could mean that there was a _Dolmen_ , a Dark Anchor, landing onto Nirn nearby. Those foul manifestations of the Planemeld were full of dark magic and that attracted thunderstorms and lightning towards them.

 

He and his comrades had been inspecting the area surrounding Daggerfall regularly to spot any signs of that the Worm Cult would be building a new Dolmen site in that region. Captain Aresin, the head of the City Guard, wanted to make sure that after the two Dolmens that had been summoned in the Daenia region near the city, there would not be a third one threatening the citizens of Daggerfall or other people living nearby. However, even if they did their best, there still was a chance that those Worm Cultists could have succeeded in hiding from them and would summon a Dark Anchor unexpectedly fast, and they had to deal with that uncomfortable feeling of insecurity.

 

He looked up to the skies, trying to figure out where the probable thunderstorm would be and if it was coming to his direction. He saw another flash of lightning but could not notice where it came from. He started to count the time before the thunder he anticipated to hear soon to determine how far away from the city the storm and the possible Dolmen would be but even if he listened carefully, no sound followed the lightning.

 

_"Must have been my imagination,"_ he spoke to himself, as he did not notice any signs of a possible thunderstorm. He considered that maybe the flashes of light had come from the Mages Guild hall; the mages there probably had been practising their skills or experimented with arcane arts. At least his friend Linnea who had been a healer and a battle mage had regularly practised her spells and the one time he had watched her training the explosions she had created with her magicka had been impressive. He knew that she had been a powerful mage - she had destroyed two Dark Anchors all by herself!

 

_"But now you're gone and we’re on our own fighting against those cursed anchors,"_ he thought; even though there were powerful mages in the Mages Guild of Daggerfall, most of them were scholars who were no fighters and he doubted that any of them would rush into a battle as fearlessly as Linnea always had.

 

_"But you've done your part already - you've done more than enough in the battle against the Daedra...may you find your peace in Aetherius - or wherever you are now...we'll continue the fight against the evil here on Nirn and deal with those damned Dolmens!"_ he thought.

 

He passed by his comrade who was keeping watch at the market place and asked if he had also seen the flashes of light or if he had heard any sounds of thunder but he had not, so William thought that they indeed had been his imagination or been caused by a spell someone had cast in the Mages Guild. He frowned a bit as the rain became pouring but then reminded himself that at least it had not turned into a thunderstorm and a Dark Anchor had not apparently landed nearby. He had almost finished his round around his region and was about to return under the shelter for a while to wait for the heaviest raining to pass - but then he saw a hooded figure approaching him.

 

As the hooded person came closer to him, he recognised her being a woman and noticed that a child was following her. "Good evening, Ms! Can I help you in some way?" he asked her, since she walked to him, clearly wishing to speak with him. Maybe she was visiting the city and wanted to know where she could find the inn to spend the night in.

 

"Are you William?" she asked. "Aye," he replied seemingly surprised because she knew his name, thus she explained: "I asked your comrade who was at the city gates if he knew you and if you'd still live in Daggerfall, and he told me that I could find you here." "Do we know each other?" he wondered out loud; her voice sounded so familiar but he could not yet remember why. "Yes, we do," she replied shortly. They all walked to the shelter where he had been standing alone at the beginning of his shift. As they reached it she took her hood off, smiled at him and said: "It's been a long time since we last saw each other."

 

"Stendarr's Mercy, Vivienne, it's you! After all these years!" he cried out as he recognised her. She was the woman whose life he had saved in the Outlaws Refuge of Evermore - what had happened in that evening had changed his life completely. He could not help but stare at her astonished for a while, not being sure if this was a dream or if she really was there. She looked exactly the same as he remembered her from the short time they had spent together years ago - except that her smile was not so broad as he thought it had been back then.

 

"After all this time...I thought you were dead!" he exclaimed and continued: "After I joined the City Guard, I wrote a letter for you to thank you for the new life you had helped me to get and your uncle promised to get it delivered to you. I got no reply from you - I thought it's...okay. Maybe you didn't want to keep contact with me anymore, I would’ve understood that perfectly, of course. But then I asked your uncle how you'd be doing in Cyrodiil and he said he hadn't got any letters from you either. Time passed by and then one day he said to me that he had gotten a message that you had gone missing in action. The months and then years went by and he got no word of that you'd be okay or alive so we both were sure that you were dead."

 

"No, I didn't die in the conflict," she replied silently, staring on the ground in front of her feet, and continued: "I survived. But I got separated from the rest of us that made it out alive from there." Then she turned her gaze to the child and added: "And soon I also found out that I was pregnant, and I thought that...I - I wouldn't make it back to our base. And you know how the things in Cyrodiil are now. They were falling into chaos back then and I’m sure that I wouldn't have managed to make any contact to our troops or send any messages to High Rock. I found a somewhat isolated village in Cyrodiil that remained rather peaceful until these days and settled in there."

 

She changed the topic and commented his appearance when he had taken his helm off: "Wow, you look so different now from the last time I saw you! Maybe I wouldn't have recognised you first if I didn't know that it was you!" He laughed a bit and replied: "Not looking like a gangster anymore?" "Yep...more clean-cut," she said smilingly and added: "I'm glad to see that you really changed your life and settled in here, it wasn't easy for sure...or are you happy here?"

 

"Aye," he said and asked her: "And you? I mean, are you alright after what happened to you in Cyrodiil and...?" "Yep, I'm fine...we've travelled a long way here," she replied and looked at the child. "So, this is your son?" William said and smiled to the boy and then asked him: "What's your name?"

 

"Will," the boy replied. "Wow, that's cool, my friends also call me Will," William replied surprised and added: "So, you're about ten years old or a bit older, right?" The boy nodded, and when William looked into his amber-coloured eyes, he suddenly saw the flash of his own past in them.

 

"Oh, dear Gods! Am I his - is he my...?" he cried out and took a couple of steps back, accidentally ending up standing under a rain gutter that was pouring down, and stood there confused, not even noticing the water that was streaming on him, getting under his gear.

 

"Yes, he is your son," she replied and gently pulled him away from the rain gutter. Then she took a piece of linen from her bag and started to dry his neck with it. She also gave the boy some gold and instructed him: "Go fetch your father a warm bowl of soup from the inn, we don't want him to catch a cold - you remember where the inn is?" The boy nodded and left with the coin. William tried to say that he was perfectly fine and that a few drops of water would not harm him and that such a hassle was totally unnecessary, but he just stood there baffled. He felt as confused as he had felt in the night when they had met for the very first time and she had taken him to her place because he had had no place to go anymore after what had happened in the Outlaws Refuge that night. Again, she had appeared into his life out of nowhere and changed it completely.


End file.
